


mumbling something about one more

by prettydizzeed



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Not In Chronological Order, Pining, the M rating is probably a stretch but just to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 11:13:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettydizzeed/pseuds/prettydizzeed
Summary: The streetlamps are a dull imitation of orange, but the light turns gold on Apollo’s cheekbones, daring R to reconsider, to rebaptize this stranger Midas at one in the morning in a town that’s mostly background noise. Fuck the Jordan River; there’s a storm drain around here somewhere. There’s something poetic about muddy water being forced into holiness. About R’s body being so close to this idealist’s righteous shoulders.





	mumbling something about one more

**Author's Note:**

> for ali - this fic came about when she mentioned that "One More" by Tyler Glenn made her think of "One Day More" from Les Mis. Y'all should go listen to those back to back and scream with me.
> 
> title is from "Promises" by Ryn Weaver

He’d kind of assumed this guy’s car would be red. Everything else about him is—red bomber jacket, red nail polish, red hoop earrings, red flush across his face and neck and the visible sliver of his collarbone. The car, though, is an inconspicuous shade of gray. No bumper stickers calling for equality, no rainbow beads hanging from the rearview mirror, no pamphlets on the dashboard—or the floorboard, for that matter; the car is so clean it could be a rental. R raises his eyebrow.

“What?” asks Apollo. R shrugs.

“Seems uncharacteristic, is all. You’re too vibrant for a car this bland.”

Apollo unlocks it. “That’s the point. Easier to get lost in the crowd, like this. Harder to be tailed.”

R snorts. “What are you, a spy?”

“Activist,” Apollo says, unimpressed. He gets into the driver’s seat and shuts the door, and R takes a breath in the empty parking lot before getting in beside him. The streetlamps are a dull imitation of orange, but the light turns gold on Apollo’s cheekbones, daring R to reconsider, to rebaptize this stranger Midas at one in the morning in a town that’s mostly background noise. Fuck the Jordan River; there’s a storm drain around here somewhere. There’s something poetic about muddy water being forced into holiness. About R’s body being so close to this idealist’s righteous shoulders.

Apollo’s hand is on the gear shift, and his knuckles are beautiful, and R rotates, hip aching against the cloth seat, and catches Apollo’s wrist as he goes to buckle his seatbelt.

Apollo looks at him, and R swallows. “It’s not like we’re in a rush, right?”

His heartbeat says otherwise. His pulse has never been this present in his body. It’s creating an undertow in his bloodstream.

Apollo lets the seatbelt go; it hits the window as it retracts. He turns off the engine. “I’ve never not been in a rush,” he says, no regret in it, and looks up from the keys, and R kisses him.

*

Grantaire never lets Enjolras give him a ride. It’s been almost four months since they met, three since Enjolras’s internship ended and he could go to Les Amis meetings again, and he knows Grantaire’s motorcycle isn’t fixed yet; ”The parts are expensive,” Bahorel had said, shrugging, when he asked. Grantaire’s apartment is close to Enjolras’s, only a few blocks away, and he knows Grantaire has known this all along, even if Enjolras only found out a few weeks ago. Still, his lack of awareness of their proximity never prevented him from offering a ride after meetings.

It’s never accepted. Grantaire won’t get in his car. Even when carpooling to a protest or a party or whatever other group event, the second driver always knows to expect Grantaire to ride in their vehicle.

It’s not like Enjolras doesn’t understand; he forces himself to focus when on the road, but he’s taken to sitting in his apartment parking lot for exactly five minutes after he gets home, resting his forehead on the steering wheel.

_(“You should come,” Enjolras says, and R, straddling him in the front seat of his car in defiance of all laws of science, raises an eyebrow._

_“We’re in a parking lot and I’m in my favorite skinny jeans. You’re not_ **_that_** _hot.”_

_Enjolras rolls his eyes. “To the meetings I was telling you about earlier. You should come.”_

_R kisses him instead of scoffing. “And what should I say, then? ‘My bike broke down and I met a god, and he bid me join your cause’?” He dips his head to Enjolras’s neck. “Apollo,” he breathes, “is this not worship enough for you?”_

_“Enjolras,” he says, and he’s sure that R can feel it in his mouth, with his lips pressed against Enjolras’s throat like this. “Tell them Enjolras invited you.”)_

Then he lifts his head and runs a hand through his hair and goes inside. He’s only forgotten to lock the car twice.

*

“Your problem,” Grantaire says, and Enjolras never used to let himself get interrupted like this, but he’s missed R’s voice the past three weeks, “is that you’re unwilling to see the divine in life. Oh, sure, I know organized religion is shit,” he continues, waving off Enjolras’s argument before he can voice it, “but if the only thing you glorify is liberty, then that makes you just as much of a fanatic. I know you think I don’t believe in anything, but I believe in more than you do, if we’re counting, because I could list a thousand things along this street that I worshipped enough to wake up this morning. You’ve just got the one Cause; my heart is a fucking Pantheon.” He glances down at where his fingers are drumming against the table, then meets Enjolras’s eyes again. “You, Apollo, need to learn how to invent some holy.”

 _Then teach me_ , Enjolras wants to say. Instead, he sighs. “I seem to recall telling you my name.” He can see Grantaire’s eyes glaze over at the memory. Grantaire’s hands still.

“Did you?” His voice is harder than Enjolras expected. “Sorry, man, my memory is shit. You might have to remind me a few times.”

The sensation of R’s lips on his throat is so close to real that it’s overwhelming. Enjolras’s knees want to buckle with the weight of it.

“Enjolras,” he says, and Grantaire nods.

“Nice to meet you.”

*

R is leaning against a bookshelf, one leg crossed over the other, watching Enjolras shop. Enjolras knows he should’ve introduced himself, but R had scoffed when Enjolras picked up a copy of _Idées républicaines_ from the pamphlets section, and then he had started in on the Apollo bullshit, and Enjolras had been too pissed to care about being polite.

And R had only given a letter for his name, anyway.

R’s opinions on philosophy, Enjolras learns as he crosses another book off his list, are infuriating, and his thoughts on revolution—or any form of political involvement in general, really—are even worse. Still, just in case he isn’t misinterpreting the way R keeps staring at him, Enjolras stops in the LGBTQ+ section before checking out.

*

They’re side by side on Enjolras’s red bedspread, and R already knows how this ends. Joly was supposed to be here—Joly had asked him to be here, which is the only reason he showed up, and he’s still not sure if the cancellation was planned or not. It’s impossible to think of anything other than the previous time he was in Enjolras’s apartment, on Enjolras’s bed. The memory has changed the DNA of this place.

At least his bike works now. He could turn around and drive off.

He’s not even sure what movie this is, only that there is an entirely excessive amount of lasers, which he’d normally be all over, but Enjolras’s eyes are all over him, and it’s all he can do not to turn his head to the left.

He knows what’ll happen next:

_Enjolras’s hair is loose and his eyes are wide and his painted nails are almost painfully bright against the gray sheets. R is murmuring bullshit metaphors about deities into his ribs, and Enjolras is correcting his pronunciation of names from Greek myths on a gasp._

_Enjolras flips them over and mirrors the same attentions all down R’s chest, and R can’t tell if it’s because he’s a ridiculously literal egalitarian or if it’s just because he wants to. Enjolras kisses him with his hands on R’s cheeks, traces his jaw with his index finger, stares and stares and stares until R wonders if this boy has ever closed his eyes. If that kind of earnestness is contagious. R, in contrast, has to look away every so often to breathe. He’s sure he’s going to wake up with sunstroke._

R turns his head, and Enjolras is already looking at him.

*

“This is some sort of Scheherazade situation,” Grantaire says. Enjolras raises an eyebrow at him, and he shrugs. “Never knowing which night will be the last, you know? Spinning” —he pauses to put his mouth to Enjolras’s collarbone— “a new story” —the hollow of his throat— “across your skin” —his sternum— “hoping it’s enough to save my life. And if not this life, then some future one.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in the resurrection,” Enjolras says. He’s out of breath. “Besides, it’s not like I can order your execution.”

Grantaire’s lips twist wryly over Enjolras’s stomach. He looks up at him. “Can’t you?”

*

Grantaire isn’t at the protest. Grantaire isn’t there at the most important event of Enjolras’s life thus far. Grantaire said he would make a speech, he said he would handle it, he said _I know you’re stressed right now, I can feel it here_ and kissed between Enjolras’s shoulder blades and on both sides of his temple, and when Enjolras steps to the podium, he knows already that his improvised speech is going to be shit because the only thing in his brain right now is Grantaire, Grantaire, Grantaire.

Grantaire isn’t at the protest. But Grantaire is at the door, one eyebrow raised, asking, “Once more?” and it’s so far from an apology that Enjolras almost accepts.

“I don’t want your penance,” he says instead, and Grantaire laughs harshly.

“Is that what you think this is? A means of atoning for my varied and plentiful sins?” He gives Enjolras a beat to deny it, and when no refutation is given, he shakes his head in bitter amazement. “If this has cosmic significance,” Grantaire says, looking Enjolras in the eye, “it’s because of the way you breathe _god_ like you mean it for once in your life. Not because of my misplaced reverence.”

Enjolras swallows. “I didn’t mean—“

“To make yourself into a deity? Yeah, I guess you’re used to me doing that for you.”

By the time Enjolras forces his throat around the word _wait_ , Grantaire is already gone.

*

There’s a man about Enjolras's age using the bookstore’s ancient landline when Enjolras walks in. The bell on the door jingles half-heartedly as he shuts it behind him, and the man looks up, staring blatantly at Enjolras for a second before shaking himself and turning back to the phone. “Shit,” he mutters. “Joly, I really don’t blame you for not answering unknown numbers, but if you’re feeling like doing something out of character, now would be a great time…”

Enjolras walks up to him, and the guy blinks. “Shit, sorry, am I blocking your shelf?”

He steps to the side, and Enjolras follows his gaze to the section of romance novels previously blocked by the stranger’s body. The guy smirks.

“No,” Enjolras says with a slight shudder. “I was—I overheard you saying you were trying to reach Joly, and I know him—about this tall, pre-med, uses a blue cane?”

The guy nods, and Enjolras pulls his phone out of his pocket. “You can call him with my phone, if you want. He might be more likely to answer.”

“Thanks, man,” the guy says, waiting while Enjolras unlocks it. “I’m actually trying to get in touch with his girlfriend, since she has a car, but my phone died and I don’t have her number memorized.”

“If you need a ride somewhere, I can just drive you,” Enjolras says, and the guy stares at him for a second, then takes a breath.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

*

Enjolras is only three sentences into his latest diatribe against the evils of modern society, and Grantaire has already made four smartass comments. That has to be some sort of record.

Courfeyrac catches him staying quiet for a beat too long, though, staring at the slant of Enjolras’s jaw, and elbows him. “He’ll make a believer out of you yet.”

Grantaire catches Enjolras’s eye and smirks. “Shocking though it may seem, Courf, sometimes it’s the other way around.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm constantly dying over exr on tumblr @basilhallward


End file.
